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So….I made bagels

I love to bake. It’s complex enough to keep my interest, it absorbs my mind when I need to just zone out for awhile, and then I get to eat what I’ve made. Win-win-win. With the heat this summer, I’ve mostly made cookies for ice cream sandwiches, a couple different fruit galettes, and the occasional pizza. But now that the weather is finally cooling down, I’ve been able to start doing more complicated projects. Last week, I made this wheat bread from Smitten Kitchen. I’ve made bread multiple times before but I was looking for something more suited to everyday sandwiches and toast. It turned out really good, and I probably will make it whenever I can from now on–we don’t tend to go through bread terribly fast, so I probably would only need to bake it once or twice a month. Totally do-able.

But now I was looking for something I haven’t done before. Bagels are something I’ve wanted to make for awhile, but every recipe I’ve encountered before seemed extremely involved or required at least a few special ingredients. So I put them in the back of my mind as a “someday” project.

Then, this weekend I came across this recipe on Poires au Chocolat, which was adapted from this post on 17 and Baking. It looked crazy easy and required only a few ingredients that I always have on hand. So I decided to give it a chance and WOW. I’m so proud of myself. They’re just like “real” bagels! Which is such a dumb statement but it’s true. Chewy and flavorful but soft in the middle…so, so good.They really were pretty easy to put together; the dough is stiffer than bread dough (aka…kneading=workout) and it takes a couple of tries to get the hang of shaping, but once you have one or two done it all makes sense. And the ugly ones still taste delicious!

I really didn’t change the recipe at all from the 17 and Baking post, so check out the recipe there if you’re interested. Make them. Because seriously…it’s BAGELS!